Income and Employment Generation in Informal sector: A case study of the street vendors of Kohima and Dimapur district of Nagaland, India

Abstract

Street vendors play a significant role to fulfill the demands of urban sector population in the region. This research article attempts to gain insight into the business of street vendors as well as their impacts on the economy. The objective of this study is to explore the dynamics of street entrepreneur and its contribution to income, employment, poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihood. The data were collected in cooperation with street vendors by using pre-tested interview schedule. Mixed model approach has been applied in this study. Non-probability sampling approach was followed for conducting research survey for the quantitative part of this study. Particularly purposive sampling procedure was adopted to draw the sample of 120 street vendors for the survey. Most of the respondents are of semi-mobile nature, some are fixed and some possess mobile activities. The study of street vendors was focused into four main areas namely BOC and Phoolbari in Kohima and Super market and New market area in Dimapur. The findings shows that 72.50% of respondents’ self-finance their businesses, 4.17% of respondents said they bought products on credit and paid their bills after they sold them and 13.34% of respondents borrowed money from individuals. The result found that income and investment both were higher for educated in comparison of uneducated respondents.